The woman, called Aysha, slept in the back of a parked pickup truck along with her children in Al-Sabeel district in the south of Jeddah.
“I was married to a Yemeni man for some time. One day I woke up and he wasn’t there anymore,” said the woman. “After that, my landlord kept asking me for rent but I couldn’t pay him anything; six months later I came back home to find my clothes and belongings on the street,” she added.
“I have five children — the oldest is 12 and the youngest is seven months. Three of my children are from my first marriage to a Saudi man and the other two are from the Yemeni. I was kicked out of the house while pregnant with my last and gave birth to my youngest at a friend’s house,” said Aysha.
With nowhere to live, Aysha began sleeping rough in the back of an abandoned truck using a large, old rug as a roof. “After getting kicked out, I began roaming the streets and started sleeping in the back of this pickup. One of my neighbors gave me an old rug and helped me build a simple roof,” she said.“I stayed there for a while. I was frightened seeing people passing by, especially at night because we were out in the open,” she added.
Suffering hunger and exposed to the heat, Aysha was unable to work and used to roam the streets asking people for money. “I couldn’t leave my children alone and look for a job because they are so young and they need close attention. All I could do was knock on doors and walk the streets day and night asking people for food and clothes,” she said. “Living on the streets is hard and exposed us to a lot of danger. Three men once raped my 12-year-old daughter and I was helpless. I couldn’t do anything,” she added.
Aysha’s plight came to light after she was discovered by reporters from Sayyidaty magazine. “We took her to a family shelter and bought her new furniture, food, clothes and toys for her children,” said Mona Siraj, the magazine’s editor in Jeddah. “Sadly, they only stayed there for six weeks and then she had to leave. She was asked to leave because other occupants at the shelter found her young children too noisy,” she added.
When her landlord kicked her out, she lost all her legal papers and ID, said Siraj, adding that she was able to find a copy of her Saudi ID. “We took her to the Department of Civil Affairs in Jeddah to get a new ID so she could be given help with renting a home or finding accommodation at another shelter. Because we couldn’t find a shelter that was willing to have her, we found her a small temporary apartment. We’re paying her rent which costs SR500 a month,” she added.
